The confusing legal justifications for torture

[noise]

I'm not a lawyer but having followed the whole torture rationale for years it appears fairly simple. The torture policy was a criminal conspiracy between the OLC, the Bush White House, the DoD and the CIA. Meaning the lack of accountability isn't due to insufficient proof but is purely a political decision.

[JDPriestly]

1. You've got it. It is a political decision that will be condemned by history

Obama will lose a lot of respect internationally because of this decision. Remember, our allies in Western European generally do not have a death penalty, have many fewer citizens in prisons and impose shorter sentences on convicted criminals overall.

So, our country is already looked upon as primitive. Our failure to stand up against torture diminishes our credibility on human rights issues to a damaging degree. Unless we prosecute those who authorized torture, our talk about human rights sounds like just so much hot air.

Obama's strength is foreign policy. I can't believe that he is not prosecuting those who authorized torture. It is a huge mistake.

This will come back to haunt us in the future, us and our soldiers.

[noise]

2. There are two aspects to this

1)The effectiveness of torture as an interrogation method.

2)The legality of the torture program.

Some of the articles about the OPR report pretend that it is a given that the torture program worked just as Cheney claims. This is simply not true. So not only was the program illegal but it didn't even help to prevent terrorist attacks.

The whole thing is sickening.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Exactly.

My question is since it's been proven to be ineffective and is also illegal, why was it used and why do jackasses like Cheney continue to defend it?! :shrug:

[Webster Green]

4. We no longer have any credibility on human rights issues.

None at all, since we are among the worst offenders.

Not that we really had any to begin with, considering our slaughter of the indigenous people we encountered as we colonized the US, our history of slavery and the treatment of minorities right up to the present day.

Greatest country on earth? Not even close! Perhaps the most delusional though.